The Vigilante's Lover: A Romantic Suspense Thriller (The Vigilantes Book 1)

by Annie Winters

  Below me sits a helicopter at the ready. Too bad that thing would light up like a Christmas tree on every Vigilante sensor if I flew it out of here. It would be a great means of escape otherwise.

  No, on foot is the only way. I will take pleasure dragging Mia through the woods in her ankle-breaking shoes. Nothing will be too harsh for that murdering liar.

  Down the corridor to the east wing, I pass two young women in Phase One white suits. We exchange pleasantries as we pass. I try to picture Mia in one of their outfits, but it’s no use. She was never a Vigilante. She’s the enemy.

  At the entrance to the east wing is one of the scanner doors. I think this one will be as simple as the one to the interrogation room.

  But this one starts scanning me several feet away, costing me precious seconds. I slap the key on the frame. The green line sweeps down as the key’s display lights up and flashes different codes. A second crawls by. The beam is below my waist. I’m not sure what will happen if it IDs me. If we go into lockdown, I’m screwed.

  Just as the beam hits my knees, the key beeps and the beam vanishes. The door slides open. I grab the key from the frame and say a silent thanks that it got me through another door.

  But this journey is taking too long. I sense my time is about up.

  I hurry down another hallway, this one much more modern than the others and decorated in soft blues and grays. Another turn and the room should be straight ahead. No one else is in this wing, at least so far. That’s a good thing, because every inch of the place has glass on the walls. My info screen is displayed for anyone who will pass by. The pulsing red of the fugitive label is visible at a good distance.

  Obviously, unauthorized guests are regular visitors to this section of the silo. Quite possibly the system has already sent out a silent alarm. When I was director, my silo did not have a wing like this, so I do not know the protocol.

  Mia’s room should be dead ahead. Yes, I see it. It has a window looking in. Probably a one-way mirror. I approach it carefully.

  Mia passes in front of the window and my stride falters. I am so angry at her. I know she had a hand in killing Klaus. But now that I see her again, I remember how innocent she looks. How lost.

  I stuff it down. She is the enemy.

  Just as I walk up to the door, an alarm goes off. Damn it. Mia looks around at the noise.

  I slap the key on the door. The display lights up and scans through the codes, then gives me a discouraging noise. I reset it and try again.

  Nothing. The door won’t open. Lockdown. Shit.

  The one-way mirror. Can I break it? I have nothing to protect my hand, so I rear back and give the window a solid side kick. It vibrates but otherwise doesn’t budge. Mia looks at it, startled. She backs away.

  “Mia!” I shout. She doesn’t react to my voice, but stares at the mirror from her side. I kick it again and she jumps back. The window holds.

  I look around, pushing the panic down and taking deep, calming breaths. There must be something nearby I can use to smash this window open. Nothing. The hall is empty.

  I hear a door open and whirl at the sound, expecting a horde of Vigilantes barreling down on me.

  “Jax?”

  Mia stands in the open doorway.

  “Jax,” she says again, “what are you doing?”

  My mind snaps back to attention. She can’t think I’m on to her, or she won’t come with me.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I say. Without waiting for her response, I grab her hand and pull her back down the hallway. She comes willingly. She’s somehow traded her high heels for a pair of Phase One Trainee uniform shoes, so we take off at a run.

  Once I have her out of this silo, she’s going to pay for what she’s done.

  20: Mia

  Thank God I got the shoes off Katya. I can’t wait to tell Jax how. He’ll be so proud of me, I think. Maybe it’ll prove I’m worthy of staying with him.

  Jax drags me down the hall at a breakneck pace. We approach another door and he sticks a bit of tape to it, or something, then pounds on the steel when it refuses to open. I lift my bracelet and the panels smoothly slide apart.

  He stares at me a moment, dumbfounded. “That shouldn’t work during a lockdown.”

  I give a little shrug. “I’m special.”

  Jax takes his tape again and we head down another hallway, this one unfinished with bare concrete.

  We come to another door, older, with an actual handle. There is no scanning device above it. I shake my bracelet at it, but nothing happens.

  Jax grins. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

  I have no idea what he means, but he turns and delivers three swift kicks to the handle. The metal groans and dents in.

  He braces both hands on the lever and jerks it swiftly down. Something snaps inside, and the door opens.

  “Low tech,” he says.

  The lights are dim in this hall, and I can hear the drip of water.

  “This way,” Jax says. We run along the concrete walls until we come to a rusting ladder. He glances down at my shoes. “Lucky break.”

  I want to tell him luck had nothing to do with it, but he’s already halfway up the ladder. It disappears into a dark circular space. I’m hesitant to follow.

  “Come on,” he calls down. “Don’t make me come for you.”

  I hear a crashing sound down the hall and figure they’re on to our location even without their fancy gadgets. I stick my foot on the bottom rung and heave myself up.

  The tunnel we’re climbing is dank and musty smelling. Jax is waiting a few feet up. “Don’t get us caught,” he hisses.

  “Just cloak us or something,” I hiss back.

  “We’re escaping the old-fashioned way,” he says and starts climbing again.

  “So they took your toys,” I say.

  “Something like that.”

  Once we’ve climbed a little way, it’s fully dark. “How are you even going to see to get out of here?” I ask. I’m not loving trying to feel my way in the pitch black on a slippery ladder with a long fall if I miss.

  My hand brushes against his shoe. He’s stopped.

  “They can shoot up this ladder, you know,” I whisper.

  “We’re at the hatch,” he says.

  He moves around a little, then I see a strange rectangle of light with a few images on it. It’s his sticky tape he’s been putting on all the doors. I guess he got to keep one toy.

  “Go back down about six rungs,” he says.

  Going down is way worse than going up. I fish around with my foot to find each bar, terrified I will lose my grip.

  “Any day now,” he says, his voice low and angry.

  Above us, an electrical flash momentarily blinds me.

  “What was that?” I squeal.

  “Trying to break the latch seal,” he says. I hear his shoes clanging on the metal as he goes back to the top. The device still emits a bit of light, enough to see shadows.

  Jax grunts, pushing up on the hatch. After a moment, a rim of light appears around the edge, then it widens.

  I see sky.

  “Oh, my God!” I say. “We’re out!”

  “Take care,” Jax says. “They may be ready for us.”

  I clutch at the ladder. I’m so glad I’m away from those people and back with Jax, I could cry.

  Jax crouches on the ladder, then springs up and out in one powerful movement, like a lion.

  I pause, waiting for the sounds of fighting or gunfire. Nothing.

  He peers back down. “Come on. We’re clear, but they have our heat signatures again, so they’ll be here any minute.”

  I hurry up the ladder. The feel of dirt and rocks beneath my fingers as I stumble out is amazing. We’re back in the woods. I want to kiss the ground.

  “They can’t get a visual in the trees, so keep moving.” Jax grips my arm as we race ahead.

  “But they can follow our heat,” I say.

  Jax races toward a huge boulder. I do
n’t know why he’s dragging me that way. It’s wide open, without any trees to hide us.

  “Not for long,” he says. Without warning, he scoops me into his arms and races across the stone surface.

  Then we’re falling.

  I clutch at him. The air is cold on my face as we hurtle down. I try to open my eyes and look at him. What has he done?

  Then we’re underwater.

  I break away, fighting for the surface in my heavy sweater dress. I’m dragged down by the weight of it. I haven’t been swimming in years, not since my parents died. After their boating accident, I didn’t go into the water anymore. I thrash around, panicked.

  Strong arms come around me.

  My face bobs above the water. Jax holds me against his chest, kicking us closer to the shore, working with the current.

  “You should learn to swim,” he says.

  “You should ask before throwing women off cliffs,” I snap back.

  “We need to stay in the water as long as possible,” he says.

  “Do you even know where the car is from here?” I ask.

  “Of course I do.”

  We float along another minute. I try to catch my breath. Above us, the sky is bright blue. Birds flit over the river, as if the people below them are simply going for a swim after a romantic picnic.

  I’m freezing, my teeth chattering, and the dress is so heavy I almost want to take it off.

  “Nearly there,” Jax says.

  He guides us toward the riverbank.

  I pull away from him. “I can swim,” I say. “Just not when I’m surprised.”

  “Doesn’t matter now.”

  I understand what he means when my feet hit bottom. The edge of the river is littered with leaves and bramble. I fight my way through it to get to solid ground.

  Jax stops me with his hands.

  “We should stay cold enough to escape detection as we get to the car, but they may have already confiscated it. Be prepared to be captured. I have no communication devices. We’re out here on our own skills.” His blue-gray eyes pierce mine. “If you have any special training, now would be a good time to tell me what you can do.”

  I don’t know what to say. “I can make sailing knots.”

  His face flickers for a moment with some unreadable emotion. “Fine. We’ll see how it goes.”

  He takes off at a loose run.

  I grab the dripping base of my skirt and hitch it up over my knees so I can keep up. “We’ll see how it goes?” I ask. “That’s all you’ve got? The big tough Vigilante with all those fancy gadgets?”

  “That’s all I’ve got,” he says, his voice cold.

  I want to jump on his back and pummel him, but the situation is too dire. If they take us back to the silo, what then? Will I still be special? Or a fugitive like him? The crystals still tinkle on my wrist.

  Jax hears them and halts. “Damn it,” he says. He snatches the bracelet and splits it apart. The crystals fall all over the leaves.

  Of course. They can track me with it.

  He takes off at a sprint now and it’s all I can do to keep him in sight ahead of me. When I think I can’t go another step, I see the car ahead. Thank God.

  Except, the tire is still flat.

  Jax stands by a tree off to one side.

  I come up next to him, sucking in air. “They took your keys, didn’t they?”

  “I’m not that foolish.” He emits a high-pitched whistle.

  “Do they come when you call them?” I ask.

  The key chain falls from the tree neatly into his hand. “Something like that,” he says. “Now get in.”

  I wrench open the passenger door.

  Jax jumps inside and has the car in motion before I can pull the handle closed. All his dash monitors are issuing warning beeps. The grid with the dots pulses red in every direction.

  “Have they found us?” I ask.

  “They’re about to.”

  Jax slams on the gas and drives us out of the trees. We hit the gravel in a full skid. He yanks on the wheel and we head to the highway.

  “They’re totally going to follow us,” I say.

  “Yes, they are,” he says.

  “But you have a plan?” I ask.

  “Of course,” he says.

  Now that we’re in the car, I feel a crazy sense of elation. I can’t help it, but let out a little squeal.

  “What?” Jax asks.

  “This is so exciting!”

  I’ve never been so crazy hyper before. I don’t care anymore how I got into this world, that Jax tied me up and dragged me into it. It feels right. I belong here. This is the best I’ve ever felt in my life.

  “They were going to send me home,” I tell Jax. “Like I could go back there after all this!”

  Jax careens down the road. The red blips concentrate on a spot well behind us. I’m betting that’s where my bracelet is. I squeal again. We fooled them!

  “Would you stop with that damn noise?” Jax growls.

  “I’m too excited!” I punch him on the arm. “What are we doing next? Where are we going? Did you find out where Klaus is? I want to meet him!”

  With that, Jax jerks off the road and we’re back in the woods again.

  21: Jax

  I’m not sure what game Mia is playing, but I’m done going along.

  I grab her by the neck and squeeze a spot that I know creates a screaming pain through her skull.

  Her eyes go bright with pain, but she can’t easily speak while I’m doing this.

  My voice is like ice. “Who killed Klaus? Was it you? Or Jovana? Or one of her people?”

  I let go. She slumps forward so fast that her forehead bangs the dash.

  I wait until I know she is recovered enough to hear me. “Who killed Klaus?” I ask again.

  Her back shakes a little, and that annoying protective urge in me is pricked again. I ignore it. “Answer me,” I insist, “or I’ll do that again.”

  She sucks in a long shuddering breath. “I—I thought I was special,” she manages to get out.

  I grab her shoulder and drag her back against her seat. “I am aware that you have somehow managed to compromise the Vigilante information network. That is no small feat.” I pull my hand away. “That doesn’t tell me who killed Klaus.”

  She turns her face to me, eyes wet with pain and fear. “Klaus is dead?”

  If her training is this good, I need to know who did it, because her confusion, fear, and innocence are so convincing that I let go of her and sit back.

  “He was killed at your safe house, six months ago. Both his record and the notification of his death were deleted.”

  She shakes her head. “No. I was there with my aunt. That’s right when I arrived. Almost to the day.” Her eyes plead with me. “We were alone. Nobody was killed there. I never heard of the Vigilantes until you told me.”

  I want to tear out my hair, a feeling I’m not used to. Interrogating difficult prisoners was something I used to do all the time. Why is this pathetic sniveling girl getting to me?

  I reach to tap my watch, realize it was confiscated at the silo, and manually bring up the dash screen. “Encrypted message,” I say.

  The display flashes red, then green. “Encryption initiated,” it says.

  “Message to Sam and Colette. Klaus dead. Records deleted. Rendezvous in—” I glance at the countdown to when I have to give up the ID of the car. I can’t push it. “Thirty-six hours.” I give a set of coordinates that will put us near the safe house.

  Mia sniffs. “They were going to send me home.” She rubs her neck. “But I didn’t want to go.”

  I cut off the communication screen so that it won’t add her ramblings to my message. Her voice sounds so forlorn, so lost.

  “All right, I’ll play,” I say. “Why didn’t you want to go home?”

  Her green eyes search mine. She looks me over, my hair, the white shirt, now wet and sticking to me, my suit jacket still at the silo. They rest on my hand, wh
ich just caused her no small amount of pain.

  “Because I want to be with you,” she says. “All the way. With you.”

  22: Mia

  There, I’ve said it.

  Jax’s expression is unreadable. I’ve just bared my pathetic heart. That I want him. I want this life. I don’t want to go home. That he can tie me up. He can do anything he wants. I’m willing.

  “Well?” I manage to ask.

  The soft dings of the alarms suddenly increase in volume and speed.

  Jax glances at the dash. “They’ve found us,” he says. “Damn it.”

  He wrenches open his door and dashes around to the trunk. I can’t see what he’s doing with it open, so I climb out of the car, tangled in the heavy, cold, wet dress.

  When I get around to the back, Jax is pulling a large gelatinous brick from the trunk. Attached to it is a circuit board with a blinking green light.

  “Time to give you your life back,” he says to the brick and heaves it into the underbrush.

  He slams the trunk.

  “Well?” I ask again. “Will you keep me? I’ll do anything you say. Anything you want.”

  He pauses for a second.

  “You really have nothing to do with Jovana, do you?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t.” My heart accelerates. I think he might be agreeing.

  “And you’re not trained in any way as an operative?”

  “I have the shoes now,” I say, lifting my foot in the white sneaker. “I can start.”

  He closes his eyes for a moment, and when they open again, they are glittering and hard.

  “I can’t have an innocent civilian come with me,” he says. “I’m a fugitive. I’m already putting my comrades in danger.”

  I take two steps closer to him. “Don’t send me back to Tennessee. That’s not where I belong. I can feel it.”

  Jax shakes his head. “We’re done here. The Vigilantes obviously know you are a civilian. I’m not sure why they are protecting you, and it doesn’t matter.” He points into the woods where he threw the brick.

  “You stay close to that, and they’ll come for you. They’ll take you home.”